Julia Power

Julia Power is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. She is a midwife nurse in Dublin who turns 30 on November 1st, 1918, the second day of the novel. She has worked as a nurse for 10 years and is extremely competent and devoted to the job. Julia’s own mother died in childbirth when her younger brother Tim was born. Her mother’s early death thus set the tone for the rest of her life: she devotes her life to saving women from a similar fate through her work as a midwife. Julia tries her best to offer her patients the best care possible and always commemorates their deaths by marking her watch to remember them.

Julia begins the novel with an awareness of the social structures of Ireland and how they oppress lower-class women and damager their health. She sees her patients suffer due to too many...